Libraries and manuscripts are catacombs where most of us might wander in the dark forever, finding no issue. To know dead generations and their environments through these channels, to feel a love so strong that it calls the past forth from its winding-sheet, and gives it life again, as Christ did Lazarus, is the privilege only of great historians.
France is honoring the memory of such a man at this moment; one who for forty years sought the vital spark of his country's existence, striving to resuscitate what he called "the great soul of history," as it developed through successive acts of the vast drama. This employment of his genius is Michelet's title to fame.
In a sombre structure, the tall windows of which look across the Luxembourg trees to the Pantheon, where her husband's bust has recently been placed, a widow preserves with religious care the souvenirs of this great historian. Nothing that can recall either his life or his labor is changed.
Madame Michelet's life is in strange contrast with the ways of the modern spouse who, under pretext of grief, discards and displaces every reminder of the dead.
Pages:
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312